A World of Glass
by Tenrose
Summary: It's a new beginning and a new world for Rose and the Human Doctor in their parallel universe at Bad Wolf Bay. But their future isn't going to be easy. It's a world of glass as they start a journey toward understanding their new fate.
1. Bad Wolf Bay

**Introduction**

Set after _Journey's End_. The Doctor has departed, leaving behind Rose and the Human Doctor in the parallel universe at Bad Wolf Bay.

Of course, I don't own Doctor Who. I wish I did, but all credit goes to BBC and the brilliant writers (Russell T. Davies and Steven Moffat, just to name a couple).

This is just a story to help me "understand" and develop the complex relationship between Rose and the Human Doctor. After all, it's a happy ending and a new beginning.

* * *

**Chapter One: Bad Wolf Bay**

Rose felt the warmth of the Doctor's hand covering hers. Their fingers were intertwined, his clasp strong and resolute. Her heart glowed at the feeling that he was protecting her, fiercely showing that he was hers and that he knew she was his. And yet she felt emptiness; a sense of cold sadness settling deep within her stomach. She couldn't understand how one could feel so warm, and happy – skin aglow, heart racing with the fluttering of requited love – yet so inexplicably empty.

"Rose," said Jackie suddenly, breaking through Rose's haze, "I need to call your father. He's going to have a fit when he finds out where we are. We've got to get out of here soon, or we'll freeze." She looked at Rose, then at the Doctor, and back at Rose again. Rose knew what Jackie was thinking. It was exactly what she herself was thinking. This Doctor wasn't – couldn't – be the same as the man she had fallen in love with, lost, found and then lost again. Yet somehow, he was. This very contradiction tore through her mind and almost made her feel faint.

Jackie took her phone from her pocket and began shaking it, then upwards toward the sky. "Bloody thing," she said. "Hardly any reception. What on earth was he thinking, leaving us –" she began, then stopped short when she saw Rose's eyes fleck with tears. "Never mind."

Rose let go of the Doctor's hand and found her mobile phone in her jeans pocket. "Here you go, Mum," she said. "I have loads of reception." Jackie took the phone and moved carefully away, as though trying to create yet minimise distance at the same time.

Rose stared at her feet. Sand was whipping around her trainers. Somehow, the patterns and swirling of the wind and sand became fascinating; an entrancing distraction from their sudden solitude.

"Rose –" said the Doctor, taking her hand again. She didn't respond. "Rose?"

Rose shifted her feet. She tried to respond. She felt the words form in her throat, but she couldn't seem to make her lips move. The Doctor squeezed her hand. "I know you don't think I'm…right." His voice trailed off. "But I need you to know this, Rose." He clasped her cheeks in his hands – the warm hands she knew so well, and didn't – and gently lifted her head. "I'm everything he is. He's everything I am. I know you like he does. I lost you like he did. I missed you like he did." He leaned over and kissed her forehead. She quivered at the sensation. "I love you, just like he did."

The tears prickling at Rose's eyes suddenly spilled over. She had no way to stop them.

"Oh, Rose." The Doctor sighed and pressed his forehead against hers, fiercely wrapping his arms around her. He knew that this would either make things far worse or much better, but in that moment, it was all he could do.

"I'm happy," she said. Her voice was muffled against his suit jacket. She didn't sound convincing to herself, let alone the Doctor, but there was truth – _somewhere _– in these two small words. The Doctor's breath, cold from the Bay wind, touched her face and she felt giddy. "I am. I just need time to…sort it out. Understand. You know."

The Doctor nodded. His lips found hers briefly, and left a kiss there. "Well, Rose Tyler, time is what I'm best at."

* * *

"Can't you send us a plane?" Jackie demanded, annoyed. "We'll be stuck here for twelve hours in the cold, Pete. I'm not too happy with that!'

"I can't help it," said Pete. "I'll have to drive, it's all I can do. I can't organise a plane at short notice. Just go stay in a hotel, and I'll pick you up from there."

"A hotel?" Jackie shouted. "Where do you think we can find a hotel out here? Oh, wait, there, I can see one! Sitting in the middle of the bloody ocean!" She had to restrain herself from hurling Rose's phone into the ocean as Pete hung up.

"Your father," she shouted, storming back to where she left Rose and the Doctor, "is driving to pick us up_. Driving_. From London. We might blow away before he gets -" She barely noticed that Rose was sitting on the sand, alone, hugging her knees and crying.

"Rose!" Jackie shouted, rushing over and throwing her arms around her daughter. "Where's he gone? What's happened?"

Rose shook her head. "He's gone to look for a place to stay tonight, Mum," she said through her tears. "He'll be back."

In the distance, they could see the Doctor striding back toward them. Jackie stood, and help Rose stand with her. "You have everything you ever wanted, Rose," she said. "Just remember that." She stared at her daughter fiercely, lowering her voice. "You're going to have to trust him. You have trusted him with your _life_ since the day you met him. In every single moment that you were together. You trusted him enough to leave your father and I behind. The Doctor – the other one - would never leave you like this, if this man wasn't really him. He wouldn't do anything that would hurt you, you know that. You'll just have to _try_."

Rose nodded, and was about to respond when the Doctor reached them, and interrupted. "I've found a place to stay," he said, almost jovially. "A nice little B&B up the road. Odd old lady, but she's got room for us."

* * *

The B&B turned out to be nearly a five mile walk from the Bay. Jackie didn't want to ask how the Doctor had managed the return journey, on foot, in just under twelve minutes.

It was set down a rather picturesque, winding lane. The little old lady who owned the B&B was, true to the Doctor's word, a little doddery; but she was a harmless little thing, with rosy cheeks and a stature best suited to an Enid Blyton storybook. Rose almost managed a giggle, imagining that her outfit would be more complete with a tea-cosy.

"Welcome here," said the lady, with a thick Norwegian accent. "Mrs Smith?" she said, smiling at Rose, whose heart skipped a beat at the words. _Mrs Smith. Mrs John Smith. Mrs Rose and John Smith. That's what we'll be. Someday. _She turned to Jackie. "And you are…?"

"Mrs Jacqueline Tyler," said Jackie carefully, with as rounded an accent as she could manage. "I'm so _very_ pleased to meet you." She extended her hand and the little old lady clasped it gingerly and shook. The Doctor had to force himself not to laugh at the absurdity of Jackie's contrived gentility.

They were led inside by the little old lady, who excitedly introduced herself as Margit Alden, seventy-two years old and mother to three lovely cats. Her English was, to their surprise, quite sophisticated, and her accent easy to understand.

"Here is the kitchen," she said. "And here is the bedroom." She pushed open the door to a cosy little room, lit by the warm glow of a fire and the soft scent of cinnamon. Margit looked at Jackie, who looked at Rose and then at the Doctor.

"I'll take the lounge room," said Jackie finally.

Margit pretended not to have heard her. "Now, I hope you'll be comfortable here. There is some food in the fridge, or else you are most welcome to join me and my cats for dinner tonight."

The Doctor stepped forward. "Thank you, Mrs Alden. We'll let you know."

Margit smiled, shook each of their hands happily, and disappeared into her own cottage, which adjoined theirs.

"I'll leave you two here," said Jackie.

As soon as the bedroom door swang shut, Rose collapsed onto the double bed and curled into a ball. She hugged her pillow to her chest, almost for dear life.

The Doctor removed his jacket and draped it over the back of the upholstered chair sitting beside the window. He paced around the room, hands deep in pockets. He stopped, unlaced and removed a trainer, then the other. He turned to stare at Rose, whose hunched body was shuddering with each tear.

His own heart – his own one, single _heart_ – was breaking, knowing that he was what she wanted and yet not what she wanted at all. To her, he was just an echo of somebody she adored, and that realisation sliced through him like a knife.

He inched around the side of the bed and knelt down beside it and looked at this girl – this woman. Rose. Rose Tyler. The one he loved so much, and always had. Without thinking, he leaned over and kissed her. Startled, her eyes flew open, and their eyes locked for what felt, in that split moment, like an eternity. Finally, he drew his gaze away and moved around to the other side of the bed. He lay beside her, and drew her close to him, wrapping her fingers through his.

It was all he could do, really. Nothing more.

And they slept that way until morning, though both their dreams were anguished with echoes and shadows of that fateful day.


	2. Home?

**Chapter Two: Home?**

Pete arrived at the cottage the following morning. His eyes were red and puffy from a long night of driving and attending to a restless, whining child. Jackie answered the door and he almost fell through it. She pulled him up and helped him onto the couch.

"Where's Tony?" she asked, looking around as though expecting her son to crawl out from under the dining table.

"He's in the car," he said. "He's refusing to come out. If I have to placate him once more, I'm going to go mad. Mad." As if to punctuate the point, he banged his head against the arm of the couch in frustration. "Jackie, I need you to go and get him out. _Please_."

A few minutes later, Jackie was sitting at her husband's feet, with Tony curled up in her lap, sound asleep.

"Jackie," said Pete faintly, his eyes still closed, "I have to ask - why are you in Norway again?"

Jackie pulled a face at Tony, who giggled. "The Doctor."

"Ah. I see. That much I guessed. But – why?"

Jackie exhaled. It was a rare occurrence that Jackie Tyler became lost for words – words were her specialty. But today, they were tangled within her mind and struggled to connect. "Well…the Doctor got himself a sort of…clone –"

"A _clone_?"

Jackie ignored her husband. "He looks like him, sounds like him, acts like him, remembers everything like him. Except this…clone…is human. He'll die like we will. And the Doctor – the first Doctor – had to keep going in _his_ universe, and the void was closing again so…the new Doctor wanted to stay here. In this world. With Rose."

Pete opened his mouth, with every intention of speaking, yet there didn't seem to be a lot he could say to do his shock justice. Finally, after several minutes, he said, "So, here's here then?"

"Yeah."

"So, is it a copy of the Doctor, or are they sort of linked somehow, like the same person with one mind?"

"I don't know," Jackie said, levering Tony off her lap and onto the floor. "It's too bloody complicated. The first Doctor tried to explain it, but you know I'm not good at understanding all his scientific stuff."

Pete sat up, clearly both confused and troubled by the concept that the Doctor had somehow managed to clone himself. "How does Rose feel about this?"

Jackie sighed. "About as confused as I am, really."

* * *

The drive home, from Bad Wolf Bay to England, was a long one. The silence felt like a sheet of glass, cold and fragile. The Doctor, a man who usually had so much to say and so many ways to say it, could not find a way to break through it. This new existence that belonged to him – the one without his Tardis, trapped in a purely human world and with a purely human future stretched out in front of him, like a winding path through a dark forest, affected him deeply. He couldn't be happy about it, and yet he couldn't be sad about it; the conflict of sensations was immensely perplexing. The only thing he could be sure about was the cold, dark knot of pain twisting in his stomach every time he remembered that Rose looked at him like he was a stranger.

Jackie had offered to drive so that Pete could try to sleep; yet all he could manage were restless flickers of sleep in between his glances back at Rose and the Doctor, who sat wordlessly and uncomfortably behind him. Jackie gripped the steering wheel for dear life; she rarely drove anywhere, let alone in a jeep in the middle of Scandinavia.

Somewhere around Oslo, the Doctor took Rose's hand in his and squeezed it, without response. Pete didn't miss the gesture, but tried to pretend he had.

The trip continued as awkwardly as it had begun. Nearly twelve hours later, as they reached their home in outer London, Pete turned to the Doctor and asked, "So, Doctor. Where will you be staying?"

The Doctor stared at Rose and back at Pete. "I - don't know."

Rose, whose eyes were red and somewhat puffy from a night of crying and a day of little sleep, said quietly, "Dad, I think he should stay with us."

The Doctor was visibly shocked by this. He had not expected Rose to _want _him around. He half imagined that she might demand he leave, and never come back, as soon as they reached London.

Pete took his daughter by the arm and led her a few feet away. "Rose," he said in low tones, "I don't think that's a very good idea at all. Your mother -"

"He needs to stay. Here," she interjected. A sudden flicker of defiance and certainty danced across her eyes. "I can't figure out what I think or feel or whether he's real or otherwise. The only thing I know for sure is that I can't be without him."

Pete sighed and stepped toward the Doctor, narrowing his gaze. "It seems that you're staying with us," he said. "But I need to warn you, _Doctor_, or whoever you are. You'd better be who you say you are. If you're not, and you hurt Rose in _any _way…well…I know a lot of things about you. And I know a lot of people who would have great interest in finding out all about them."

Jackie caught the Doctor's arm as he ascended their staircase. "Don't mind Pete," she said. "He's just worried about Rose. I was there, remember, and I know you would never hurt my daughter."

The Doctor nodded. "I would never, ever hurt her. I promise you that."

* * *

Rose sat on the edge of her bed, looking around her room. Everything was as she'd left it, four days earlier. Before everything had happened. Suddenly, life was back to normal, and almost in the way she had wanted; and yet, she was unlikely to experience anything resembling normalcy again.

It was in the middle of this reverie that she noticed, with a start, that the Doctor was leaning into her open doorway and staring at her.

"Rose," he said. "Can we talk?"

She cast her gaze downward, her cheeks burning with the embarrassment of being surveyed with such scrutiny. "I s'pose."

The Doctor sat next to her, on the edge of the bed. He exhaled. "What are we going to do?"

Rose shrugged. There was silence for a few minutes. Neither had an answer. Finally, he said, "I could find a house. Somewhere."

"No. That wouldn't work."

"Well, what else would work?"

"You'll have to live here. With us." Rose swallowed, not believing her words. "With me."

The Doctor shook his head. "Your Dad...he won't like it."

"I don't care. Mum will let you."

He stared at her quizzically. "You've barely looked at me since we were at Bad Wolf Bay," he said. "You kissed me once and you've hardly touched me since…but now you're desperate for me to live here in the same house as you. _That_ I don't understand."

A tear slid down Rose's cheek, and she bit her lip in an effort to prevent any more from escaping.

"Why, Rose?" he said. "_Please_!"

"Because I _love_ you!" she shouted, without meaning to. "And I love _him_! I love you _and _him." She had to tip her head over her knees as her sobs grew louder and more forceful. She felt as though she had been winded, that somebody had hit her stomach, with such force that she could hardly breathe through her words. "I don't know where you start and he stops, or he starts and you stop. I can't bear to look at you because it hurts so much, but I can't let you go because-"

The Doctor's impulses exploded in his mind and he grabbed her again and pulled her close. He kissed her deeply. He felt her tears on his cheeks and he wondered whether perhaps she could feel his, too. In those few moments – in those few beautiful moments – he felt completely _alive_; more alive than he had felt in so long. "Rose, it's me," he murmured. "It's _me. You know that."_

In those few moments, he had Rose – _Rose_, the only thing he'd ever truly been afraid to lose – and she, with a burst of realisation and growing joy searing through her body, had her Doctor.


End file.
